Wednesday, November 29, 2017

“Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?” (Romans    8:24)

Hope permeates this First Sunday of Advent.  It shines with possibility and anticipation and potential. Hope stirs the weary soul and heals the broken spirit. Hope alerts us to the future that promises blessing and peace and abundant living.

But hoping is not the same as wishing.

I wish I had million dollars, but I hope that God will help me to help others our of my sufficiency.

I wish that I was stronger, younger, and more adept at some things, but I hope that I will be able to use my God-given talents to do the best I can.

I wish that you didn’t have to face that test, but I hope that God will walk with you, even through the valley before you.

Wishing is about mostly about unrealistic expectations and sometimes quite selfish desires. It can be about chasing rainbows and building castles in the sky. Wishing is passive and improbable. It is the waiting for something good to happen and thinking it will land easily in your lap. Sometimes, wishing is born out of an attitude of entitlement and a self-deserving sentiment. It is an inward but rootless desire for results that have no likelihood of ever happening, leading to disappointment and frustration, envy and resentment.

Hoping is hard, active work. It takes creativity, imagination, thoughtfulness, and commitment. It dares look the future in the face and envisions fresh and new possibilities. Hoping is the result of having faith, trust and the strength to wait patiently. Hoping is not easy as there is much in this world that darkens its path. Anyone can wish for something but it is the strength of one’s character that truly builds up hope against the odds, against the storms, against the prevailing culture, against what seems inevitable, futile and fruitless. “Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness…” (2 Corinthians 3:12)

But I also believe that the Biblical image of hope is rooted in the promise of the Kingdom of God and that means it is also attached intimately and imminently to the person and message of Jesus Christ. It is first announced in the song of Mary, “His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him. He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts. He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.” (Luke 1: 50 -53, The Message Bible)

This promise is full of hope even though we seem far from such a world as this. But it is the hope of reversal, transformation, New Creation and the impregnation of God’s Love into our lives and world.

This is a hope that warns as well as comforts; it emboldens as well as leaves us quaking in our boots; it is wild and radical as well as challenging and earth- shattering; it is visionary as well as practical and pragmatic.

Hope is the Good News proclamation that God is not yet finished with us or our world. Watch out! Hang on!  “Then Jesus  spoke: ‘You're blessed when you've lost it all. God's kingdom is there for the finding. You're blessed when you're ravenously hungry. Then you're ready for the Messianic meal. You're blessed when the tears flow freely. Joy comes with the morning.’” (Luke 6:20 -21, The Message Bible)

Dale